


Guigemar

by sigo



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alien Planet, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Armitage Hux Has Feelings, Armitage Hux Smokes, Armitage Hux is So Done, Asphyxiation, Blood, Blow Jobs, Bottom Armitage Hux, Brendol Hux's A+ Parenting, Choking, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Darth Tantrum and his Evil Space Ginger, Dominant Kylo Ren, Force Choking (Star Wars), Hurt Kylo Ren, Injury, Injury Recovery, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Kylo Ren in Love, Kylo Ren is a Mess, M/M, Mentioned Brendol Hux, Porn Minimal Plot, Possessive Kylo Ren, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Power Bottom Armitage Hux, Spit Kink, Submissive Armitage Hux, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Top Kylo Ren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:35:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24616147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sigo/pseuds/sigo
Summary: Hux was presently wondering for the hundredth time why Kylo even kept him around. Their familiarity wasn’t lost on Hux -- he decided again that it was the reason he still had his job and his life. Hux was a known threat. The antagonism between himself and Kylo Ren was nearly comfortable for the both of them now. He knew he was valuable as well, but he didn’t believe that Kylo saw that. That’s where he was wrong.Kylo was here on this particular fundraising expedition because he’d had a vision months ago: negotiations gone wrong, Hux captured and then killed, the First Order scattered into factions. Kylo’s destiny torn away from his grasp with the murder of his General. His. Kylo was far past the point of considering Hux his property before he was aware that he’d begun to, and by then there was no going back. So here they were, together. Hux scrounging up credits for his military and Kylo jealously guarding all that belonged to him.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Comments: 12
Kudos: 249





	Guigemar

**Author's Note:**

> The graphic depiction of violence warning is 100% because of some under-negotiated but consensual kink in the last act. I would not call this graphic like some of my other stuff is, it's just to be safe. If you've read the tags and they're fine then it is fine, possible tw in greater detail in end notes if you'd like to know.  
> Here we go, a fundraising-tour!fic with the boys post-TLJ. I made the planet up and also nothing works like I'm pretending it does, as usual.

With a shuddering jolt, their shuttle broke the boiling atmosphere of Oradin, gliding down through its perpetual rainy night skies. This planet, like most of the Core Worlds, was urban, made up of more durasteel and neon than soil. In the time of the High Republic, thousands of years ago, it had been a sanctuary to Jedi Knights. It’s kyber core attuned the whole planet to the Force. There had been native trees -- a varietal of willow -- with glowing fronds that were rumored to impart visions upon a Force user that touched them, now endangered as the cities encroached on their habitat. Kylo had privately been hoping to search for one upon their arrival here, but all that greeted them as they docked was a filthy cityscape.

Hux pulled out his datapad, using this last moment of complete security to relay any pertinent information to Kylo, just as he’d done on the last three planets they had visited on this fundraising tour.

“Oradin is only rich in one resource that pertains to us,” Hux said. “Credits.”

Kylo rolled his eyes, knowing Hux saw -- Hux always saw. Now he couldn’t berate Kylo for it, at least. A welcome change.

“ _Credits_ ,” Hux repeated, “gathered through the manufacture and sale of an illegal drug they call Black Ice in its refined form. Splice, if you’re looking to purchase the cheaper product.”

“Spice?”

“Similar. It’s purported to have stronger effects, and it has recently become _very_ popular. The important part is that these people are rich. Richer than the Canto Bight profiteers at the present moment. If we win their backing we’ll be able to buy out several rebel-allied planets instead of wasting full assaults on them.”

“We can break any planetary force that opposes us.”

“Of course, Supreme Leader,” Hux demurred, the silk in his voice at odds with the flaring anger in his mind. _Crait was quite the display. Defeated by a ghost_ . “Nevertheless, a military requires funds.” _Why did you come along at all?_

Kylo chose to overlook Hux’s prickling thoughts. This tour had forced them into working in closer quarters than ever before, and if he threw Hux aside every time the man snarked at him in his mind, there’d be no bone left unbroken in him by now. Hux had only barely protested, at least out loud, when Kylo had announced he would be accompanying Hux on this mission. He figured that Kylo wanted to keep tabs on him. Unwilling to let the leash out too far. Hux would do the same were their positions reversed. He didn’t realize that Kylo could keep tabs on him from across the galaxy. The more familiar Kylo was with someone’s mind, the easier it was to pinpoint at a distance. And Hux was, through circumstance, very familiar at this point. Kylo could not only sense him but unwind his thoughts at a touch, as easy as unknotting his own robes. Kylo found himself brushing up against Hux’s mind without even meaning to these days.

Hux was presently wondering for the hundredth time why Kylo even kept him around. Their familiarity wasn’t lost on Hux -- he decided again that it was the reason he still had his job and his life. Hux was a known threat. The antagonism between himself and Kylo Ren was nearly comfortable for the both of them now. He knew he was valuable as well, but he didn’t believe that Kylo saw that. That’s where he was wrong. 

Kylo was achingly aware that the First Order would cease to function if he lost Hux, loyalties splitting along seams until it all fell away. The Order had no reason to follow Kylo Ren’s lead, truly. Kylo was not one of them. Hux was. It was the ugly truth that Snoke had whispered to him years ago, to prevent Kylo from killing Hux in one of their many spats. And as much as Kylo would like for it to be otherwise, without the Order’s firepower he would not have the strength to rule.

He was here on this particular fundraising expedition because he’d had a vision months ago: negotiations gone wrong, Hux captured and then killed, the First Order scattered into factions. Kylo’s destiny torn away from his grasp with the murder of his General. _His_. It riled up that old hatred in him, to think that any sentient in the galaxy had the audacity to try and take what was his. And somewhere in the interim between Starkiller and Crait, Hux had been added to that list. Kylo was far past the point of considering Hux his property before he was aware that he’d begun to, and by then there was no going back. So here they were, together. Hux scrounging up credits for his military and Kylo jealously guarding all that belonged to him.

They disembarked their shuttle, leaving the troopers with it -- this was a diplomatic mission after all -- and walked into the shining, wet streets of Oradin’s capital city, the misting rain beading up on their faces as a hundred hues of neon beckoned them forth. Kylo and Hux had booked adjoining rooms in a hotel close to the dock where they’d left the shuttle, in case they needed to make a hasty exit. The lack of their trooper unit was only slightly concerning. Hux still had his blaster and Kylo his saber. Even if the Oradians demanded they leave them at the door later, Kylo was unconcerned. He was never truly unarmed.

As they walked together into the hotel’s neon-edged entrance, something noticed them. Its presence flared in the Force. Kylo felt it. He paused, stepping back out into the rain to look around the corner. Hux waited just inside, and then stepped out too, peeking around the edge of the door.

“What are you looking at?”

“Nothing.”

“Shall I leave you to it?”

Kylo shook his head slightly to clear it, frowning. The Force signature he thought he’d felt faded, leaving the area. He pushed past Hux roughly, entering the hotel. He left dealing with the concierge to Hux, and when that was through, they made their way to their rooms -- drab, cheap enough to ensure the proprietor was not of the same ilk as the dignitaries they would visit tonight -- and rested a moment.

Kylo laid upon his bed longer than Hux did. He could feel it when Hux got up and started to bustle around his own room beyond the door, freshening up for their meeting. Kylo found himself skimming Hux’s mind without trying again, feeling the hot water of the shower run over his skin, catching a glimpse through Hux’s eyes of his pale reflection in the mirrored wall as he turned to grab a sheet of hotel soap out of the dispenser.

Kylo felt heat bloom low in his stomach, and got up with a huff. He showered too, palming himself under the rushing water, closing his eyes tight and trying not to connect again until he was through. Once he’d finished with a grunt and rinsed the pearlescent result from his hand, Kylo shut the water off and stood at the sink, feeling Hux just beyond the mirror, leaning in as he parted his hair.

The Oradians had _insisted_ on providing appropriate garments for them, and a trunk sat in the entryway of Kylo’s room now, having been delivered by a droid. Kylo had only barely allowed Hux to take his measurements for them, and now he wished he hadn’t. He’d prefer his own robes. Scowling, Kylo dug through the trunk and pulled out its contents. The fabric was black, at least, though the panels of the shirt were lined with tiny kyber crystal chips that glowed pale green. The trousers were straightforward. Kylo struggled with the top -- why did anything need this many straps? Hux knocked at his side of their adjoining door before entering.

Hux had figured out their required formal wear. Three straps went down across his collar bones from one around his throat, meeting the top of the shirt which was cut straight-across his chest. The sleeves were a latticework of loose straps ending in black velvet wraps on his forearms. The bodice of the shirt was tailored tight on his frame, crystal-edged velvet panels that accented how incredibly thin he was instead of hiding it like his uniform did. Hux wore his regulation boots over his fitted trousers instead of the thin sandals in the trunks, forgoing propriety for the ability to run if necessary, and Kylo decided he’d do the same. Supposing he ever got the damned thing on right. Hux looked at him with wry amusement.

“If I may, Supreme Leader?”

Kylo sighed heavily and held out his arms, where the straps were tangled. Hux set to fixing them, his ungloved fingertips warm against Kylo’s skin. It was strange to see Hux, with his face neutral and his hair gelled back like always, in such a lavish garment. It was strange, too, to see so much of his skin on display in person. In the years Kylo had known Hux he’d never seen more than the slip of his wrist, except in scattered looks through Hux’s own eyes.

Before he considered what he was doing, Kylo reached up and traced the strap at the center of Hux’s chest, from his throat to the top of his breastbone. Hux did not back away, but his own motions stilled, hands frozen setting the straps at Kylo’s left shoulder into place. Kylo coughed and said, “Thought it was off center.”

Hux didn’t acknowledge that, simply finishing his work, pulling the center strap on Kylo’s shoulder even. Before he took his hand away, he ran his fingertips along the edge of the strap he’d been adjusting, over the muscled curve of Kylo’s shoulder. “There.” Hux turned, walking toward the door. His shirt had the same low-cut V in its back that Kylo felt on his, baring the curve of Hux’s spine and the pale expanse of his back.

Kylo walked gracelessly into his main room and pulled on his boots, worn and heavy and decidedly not suited for what he was wearing. He studiously avoided taking another look at Hux. At the contrast between black velvet, eating the light around it, and white flesh. His own skin, while rendered nearly as pale from his years in space, was dotted with moles. Hux’s back seemed carved from white stone. Kylo stood and picked up his saber then hesitated a moment, not finding anywhere suitable to clip it.

“Pockets in back” Hux supplied, dipping his hands into his back-trouser pockets and pulling his lighter and cigarra tin from one and his datapad from the other.

Kylo located his own pockets and clipped his saber to one. “Are you not taking a weapon?”

“Boot holster,” Hux said disinterestedly, checking the time on his datapad. “Our ride should be out front.”

  
  


Oradin’s elites were gathered on the top floor of one of the towering skyscrapers, in a massive circular ballroom that rotated slowly, affording its occupants different views of the sprawling city. The room, just like the people, was lined with black velvet and pale crystal. Tables were set up where people crowded together to partake in spirits and in Black Ice. Lines of the dark and glittering powder were available on shining sheets of durasteel, and Oradians inhaled it through elegant metal straws. They were a humanoid species, though their skin was deep violet and they grew no hair on their bodies. Their faces and arms -- the parts of them visible above the velvet outfits everyone wore -- glowed with tiny constellations of light, flaring up whenever they moved closer to the crystal fixtures in the room.

One of them approached Kylo early in the evening, making some inquiry about his mood he hardly heard, and he had tried to move her along by telling her she didn’t care to know, adding a little push of Force behind it. She had only laughed, showing him the glinting edges of her crystalline teeth, and chided him in accented basic, “Oradian folk cannot be fooled by Jedi.” After that, the Oradians seemed to avoid him, only casting mean smiles in his direction. Out of all the possible information that Hux might have neglected in his briefing, leaving out the fact that Oradians’ skeletons were composed of kyber-like structures was a large oversight. The Force wouldn’t help Kylo influence this species. He could still look in on them, at least.

As Hux made rounds of the room, discussing nothing in many words with these would-be benefactors, Kylo skimmed their thoughts. Without exception, he drew back quickly from each mind he entered, struggling to keep his distaste from his expression. It was like drinking from a fetid pond. There were thoughts about himself. Kylo was used to those -- he’d heard them before. There were wonderings about him, his power. His lineage. Whether he truly killed Han Solo. About his scar. About his qualifications to lead, about his plans. Whether he had any to begin with.

The thoughts about Hux were different. Kylo was used to hearing, by now, a steady stream of consciousness transmitted to him from people in the Order, and those people either respected Hux or feared him enough to pretend they did. These people looked at Hux and saw someone uncouth. Below their station. The Oradian elite, enriched for centuries by the Jedi Order and now by the addicted masses of the galaxy, had no respect for the unwealthy. They abhorred in turn anyone who had to work for their station. And Hux, in the course of his entire life, worked very, very hard. He had clawed his way to the top, born leagues below. Hux was someone with a cold glint that never left his eyes, even after a drink. He refused all offers of Black Ice, plainly still on the clock. Through the eyes of the crowd Kylo saw clearer than ever before Hux’s military upbringing in his mannerisms, the lean muscle in his frame and the set of his jaw, the styling of his hair, and his _boots_. To these bejeweled people, it was all distasteful.

Upon Kylo and Hux’s exit, after a short lift ride back down to the sodden streets below, Hux’s mind was nearly glowing with accomplishment. He was extremely satisfied with the evening, sure of forthcoming success. His gait was light and quick through the rain. If he were a man prone to it, he might have hummed or whistled as he walked along. His good cheer weighed on Kylo, whose mind was nearly its exact opposite. He’d had to listen to the Oradians meaningless prattle all evening, hearing their unvoiced reservations, and he was tired. It was irritating. Hux was irritating.

“They think you’re rude. And _provincial_.” said Kylo, his voice rough from disuse. It was the first thing he’d said since shortly after the event started.

He expected Hux to sour, but the man just chuckled. “It doesn’t get much more provincial than Arkanis. Did any of them call me a yokel?”

“Their word for it.”

Hux laughed again.

“That doesn’t worry you?”

“I don’t need them to like me, Ren.” Hux said, unperturbed indeed. “They’ll see the value of a united galaxy for their trade profits. That’s all that matters to them, truly. The rest is inconsequential. A bit of scandal might even help us. Fodder for their gossip halls.”

“You let them lord themselves over you for a few credits.”

“More than a few,” Hux’s eyes flashed.

“It’s weakness. We don’t need them.”

“We do, at the moment. You cut our last financier in half, _Supreme Leader_. It’s patience.” Hux disagreed. “Once the galaxy is ours-- yours, then you can do whatever you please to this miserable planet. If it’s inhabitants have upset you so very much.”

“I’m not upset, I--” Kylo stopped abruptly, both speaking and walking. He turned, swiveling toward the flash of that same Force energy he’d felt before, this time dashing around the corner in the alley to their right. It had been Light. Kylo’s blood boiled.

“Supreme Leader?” Hux asked drily. He used Kylo’s pause as an opportunity to light himself the cigarra he’d been craving, shielding the flame of his lighter delicately from the wet weather.

Kylo said nothing for a long minute, mind whirring. The very reason he was here was to keep Hux from getting himself killed. And yet.... this energy seemed to pursue him in a way only the heart of the Dark had before. It didn’t feel like the scavenger. He’d know her anywhere. Wouldn’t he? Was she cloaking herself somehow? “Go on without me.”

Hux was taken aback. “I was beginning to wonder whether an hour alone was too much to ask. Not afraid I’ll plot against you in your absence?”

“You do it in my presence,” Kylo sniffed, still staring at the darkened alleyway where he’d felt that Force signature. “Go. I’ll check in with you later.”

“What shall I tell the Order if you don’t come back?”

“Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Mm,” Hux hummed noncommittally and kept walking back to the hotel alone, the scrape of his boots muffled by the rain and city, smoke curling up from his lips, blue neon lighting the curve of his spine up and making his hair strangely pink. Kylo watched him a moment, debating himself again. Hux would be fine long enough for Kylo to sort this out. He’d have to be. Kylo dashed down the alley after whatever it was that he’d felt.

He pursued it, gaining quickly, vaulting himself over a humming steel generator and tearing his sleeve in the process. He drew his saber hilt from his pocket and held it at the ready, skirting a corner…and coming face to face with a creature.

It was powerfully attuned to the Light, attuned to the kyber of this planet: a large native quadruped like a cross between a nexu and a loth-wolf. It had faintly shining white crystalline formations all over its body in place of hair, and cyan antlers sprouting from its head. Its many jagged teeth were made of blue crystal.

For a time Kylo and the creature merely studied each other. It seemed to whisper to him, and he could feel it in his head. It pulled forth an image, the feel of a sickly question encircling it. Ach-To on the night of destruction. An immense feeling of loss hit him, coming from the creature. It was mourning the ones like itself, attuned to the Light. The ones who had built pathways in Kylo’s mind and then ripped them out to the root in fear of him. Kylo ignited his saber and lunged. He struck the creature across its face, shattering one of its horns off and cleaving away part of its skull, revealing the blue light beneath. It screamed, falling away to the side. As Kylo brought his saber up for another strike, the creature leapt forward and buried its glowing teeth in the meat of his thigh, knocking him to the wet ground.

In the instant that those crystal fangs punctured him, Kylo’s mind was overcome with pictures. Glowing flowers in a bioluminescent forest, wilting. The touch of Rey’s hand and then the look on her face when she’d rejected him. The burning temple on Ach-To. Crystalline caves where this creature lived, and the little pups waiting there now. Hux pulling him aboard a shuttle as the surface of Starkiller crumbled beneath them, and then Hux’s face going purple as Kylo nearly choked the life from him. The Light, a basking warmth like sunlight on skin. The Dark, a cold pit. A wound festering, festering… _It will never heal._ His own voice, but not his own thoughts. _Until someone can love that which you are, the rot will show_. It was the creature, Kylo realized. Still with its jaws clamped down on him, it died of its injury.

With a horrified cry, Kylo dropped his saber and wrenched the creature’s teeth from his leg. The bite stung, already swollen. As he watched, the puncture wounds visible through his pants filled with glowing blue ooze, dripping down his skin to the ground. Kylo retrieved his saber and shakily powered it down and clipped it away, and then tried to haul himself to his feet. His leg would not hold his weight, and he forced himself to crawl forward through the rain and the puddles as long as he could, making it nearly back to the street where he had left Hux and then collapsing, dragging himself a final few feet before he could move no more and the world darkened.

  
  


He wasn’t cold. That was the first thing Kylo registered, the second being that he was dry. He opened his eyes, groaning weakly at the stab of pain in his temples that caused. The light was too bright.

Beside him, a voice ordered the lights down. He turned toward the sound, reaching out, his confusion and terror ebbing away. Hux came into focus, back in his uniform. He brushed Kylo’s hand aside gently, laying it back down on the bed. Kylo’s bed. They were back in his hotel room. Kylo sat up on his elbows weakly, looking down his body. He wore fresh undergarments and socks, and his skin had been cleaned. His wound was swollen even worse than before, the bandage wrapped around it starting to soak through.

“How did you--”

“Tracker,” Hux murmured, unwinding the bandage on Kylo’s thigh to replace it with a fresh one. “Your customary pet collar.”

“I wasn’t in uniform,” Kylo said, bleary, looking at the glowing puncture wounds in his flesh. They were larger than before. Whatever had been on the creature’s fangs, it was eating away at him.

“I put one on you, you idiot. You didn’t even notice, did you?” Hux needled him softly, pushing on his chest with one hand until he laid back down. “If you would tell me what did this, I may be able to better treat it.”

Kylo bit his lip, deep shame and rage coursing through him. No treatment would work, he knew. He couldn’t tell that to Hux. Hux would be apt to leave him if he knew Kylo was a lost cause. Before he worked out what to say, the door slammed open.

A group of armored Oradians stood with blasters drawn. The one at the forefront, the one who had attempted to talk to Kylo last night, addressed them. “Come with us quietly, and you will be given a trial.” Hux raised his right hand up, the left, the one that had been holding Kylo’s bandage in place, dipping down toward his holster. The Oradian woman primed her blaster, aiming for his head. “General Hux. Place your weapon on the bed for collection now. The light sword too.” Hux had clipped Kylo’s saber to his own belt, Kylo saw. One of the leader’s companions readied their blaster as well, aiming for Kylo. Hux did as he was told, glancing at Kylo.

 _Ren, now would be a good time_.

Kylo raised his palm toward the Oradians, concentrating, and was unable to do more than push them back an inch before he collapsed again with a pained hiss.

They were the both of them cuffed in mag-binders and transported -- Kylo on a hastily-requisitioned med-lev -- to another building deep in the city center, far from their ship. The Oradians installed them in their justice center, in a room much like that of a hotel except that this one was under guard. Even the outer wall of the room was a large window, just like traditional hotels, but this one was triple-paned transparisteel. Once they were alone and uncuffed, Hux went about scouring the room for anything useful, also sweeping the surfaces for cameras or audio recorders. Kylo lay now on this bed, an exact mirror of only the hour before, feeling supremely weak. After a while, Hux returned and took his place on the other side of the bed, empty-handed.

“Nothing?” Kylo asked.

“They only took our weapons, but I haven’t got a signal on my datapad. There’s a jammer here. What did you see in their minds? If you can still do that. Hells.”

“They don’t trust the Order so they’re throwing their lot in with the Republic. They don’t know what they’ll do with us yet. They intend to see who can offer them the highest bounty for our heads.” Kylo left out the last part, the part he’d foreseen, though frustrated tears brimmed in his eyes at the thought of it. Hux wouldn’t leave this room alive. Maybe Kylo wouldn’t either, now.

Hux didn’t comment on anything Kylo had said, asking instead, “How’s your leg?”

“I can sleep,” Kylo said, flexing his knee to test the pain level. “It can wait till morning.”

  
  


When morning came, just as damp and dark as night on this planet, Kylo was wracked with pain. His thigh had closed up overnight and now was so swollen as to be nearly purple, with the skin pulled taut and shiny. He feared it would split open. Hux bustled around, obtaining the medkit from the refresher.

“I cleaned it yesterday, with the kit at the hotel,” Hux was mumbling as he approached.

“Great job,” Kylo snarled at him.

Hux sat at his bedside and rifled through the kit. “Can’t give us anything remotely useful here, can they? Leave me a surgical blade and I might stab them...actually I would. Still,” Hux tsked. “Ah ha!” He pulled out an automatic syringe and switched it on, calibrating the settings. “I need to put a towel under your leg to keep the sheets clean.”

Kylo clenched his teeth, but nodded, yelping in pain when Hux lifted his thigh to shove the towel under. Then, Hux brought the syringe up and carefully guided the needle into the most distended part of the wound. A thin stream of blue refuse dripped from the tiny puncture. The syringe flared to life, sucking the glowing pus from the infection out and quickly incinerating it in the chamber each time it was filled. Hux held it steady through the process, his mind concentrating on that, ignoring the crick in his wrist. Slowly, Kylo’s pain ebbed. The wound was drained. “There’s antibiotic patches here, I’ll put one on.” Hux informed him as he withdrew the syringe. Hux wiped down Kylo’s thigh with a disinfectant sheet and then carefully tapped down the patch over the entire area, making sure it’s microneedles broke the skin. Kylo lifted his knee slightly, glad that doing so didn’t cause him to cry out. Of course, this reprieve was temporary.

“What did this?” Hux asked again.

“It’s your fault,” Kylo snapped at him.

Anger flared in Hux’s mind. “How—” he shook his head, grinding his teeth. “No, I’m not entertaining this. It’s not.” And then, “Do you need the refresher?”

Kylo was suddenly aware that he did, and also aware of how demeaning this would be. He nodded.

Hux helped him stand, and together they hobbled to the refresher, Hux’s shoulder under Kylo’s arm on his injured side, holding him up. “You weigh as much as a speeder bike,” Hux grunted.

“Okay I’ve got it,” Kylo said once Hux had gotten him close enough to the toilet, leaning his arm on the wall to steady himself. Hux scoffed. “I’ve got it,” Kylo repeated. “Unless you want to stand here and watch me piss.” Hux retreated, but only to the doorway.

When Kylo was done Hux reappeared. “You ought to shower.”

“I don’t want to shower.”

“Well I have to sleep next to you, and you smell.”

“You’re going to stand in the shower with me?” Kylo thought for sure that would be the end of it, but:

“I’m not breathing your stench all night again.” Hux was realizing that Kylo hadn’t grown up with communal showers, and was getting annoyed. Kylo could hear him, _You big overgrown child_ .

“Fine.”

Hux undressed him, an awkward process, and then guided him into the ‘fresher stall and steadied him in the corner before shedding his own clothes. Kylo tried not to look, only catching Hux’s pale frame in the corner of his eye. To think that yesterday he had marveled over the man’s collar bones. Hux pressed the button for the water before he entered, and Kylo shouted angrily as the first spray of cold water hit him. Hux laughed.

Once the water warmed, Hux entered, immediately pressing himself into Kylo’s space. Unashamed. He got a sheet of soap from the wall dispenser and started lathering it on Kylo’s skin, his movements quick and utilitarian. Even so, Kylo felt his body begin to stir, his skin getting hot and his cock twitching, and dove into Hux’s mind to try and stave off this particular humiliation.

His vision was suddenly reversed, looking at himself. Hux was concentrating on his movements, nudging Kylo’s arm to clean underneath. But Hux’s mind was no sanctuary. He was also, as he worked, admiring Kylo’s chest, his arms, the muscle on his legs. This admiration was tinged with jealousy, and Kylo itched to tell Hux that he was attractive too, though doing so would only make Hux furious at the intrusion into his thoughts. The comfort of having a task to complete and the satisfaction of fulfilled curiosity melded in Hux’s mind, shot through with spikes of lust that tasted like electricity.

It wasn’t the first time Kylo had felt lust from Hux — it had been there the first time Kylo removed his helmet in front of the General. But it was the first time in years. Kylo had succeeded in dampening it in Hux before, by virtue of being himself. Now it was back. Had it ever truly left? Kylo was no longer sure.

He returned to his body when Hux reached up to lather his hair with citrus-smelling shampoo. He was hard, his attempt at avoiding it having backfired spectacularly, and Hux had turned nearly sideways to get close enough to clean Kylo’s hair without touching his cock, steadfastly ignoring it.

“Alright, time to rinse,” Hux told him, and his voice was just a little rough, and there were blotches of color from more than the temperature of the water high on his cheekbones. Kylo let himself be maneuvered under the water, shutting his eyes, and Hux washed away the suds in his hair until the water ran clear. Kylo shakily exited the stream and Hux helped him down to the bench at the back of the stall before cleaning himself.

Kylo felt ludicrous, sitting there staring at the wall with his cock standing up, red and leaking, both of them pretending not to notice it. Hux leaned back under the water, rinsing his own hair, and Kylo chanced a look at him. Hux was thin enough that the faint shadows of his ribs showed when he lifted his arms up like this. His lower stomach was dusted with a trail of copper hair leading down between his thighs, where his own cock stood at half-mast.

“Like what you see, then?” said Hux.

Kylo looked up, startled, meeting Hux’s green eyes, open now beneath his waterlogged hair dripping into his face. He looked softer, like this. But that was a lie. There wasn’t a thought in the man’s head without guile. Hux would use anything at his disposal to tip their balance in his favor, and Kylo couldn’t do this now. It was all too much.

“Don’t,” Kylo said softly. Almost more of a plea than a command.

For an instant some faint emotion shadowed Hux’s face, and then his neutral passivity was back. “Call me when you’re done.” He quipped, and left.

Kylo released a shaky breath and set to relieving the hot pressure in his groin, working himself to release alone in the ‘fresher for the second time in as many days, haunted. He could order Hux to get him off. Hux would obey. He would even enjoy it, Kylo was nearly sure. But the idea of that felt like the edge of a knife. Better to keep it turned away. Kylo came with a low moan and then struggled up, holding his hand under the spray of the fresher before shutting it off.

Hux waited just outside, dressed in one of the pairs of loose gray sleep pants provided by this establishment. He had needed to cinch the waist tight and tie it off, and they were short on him. Kylo didn’t feel like trying his luck with the other pair. They’d be too tight on his thigh. He stooped and reached for his discarded boxers instead. Hux was at his side in the next instant, helping him, his touch light and unobtrusive. It still burned.

“Back to bed?”

“No. The chairs by the window, for a bit.”

“Yes, sir.”

They settled in the chairs, the absence of Hux’s heat next to Kylo a balm in its own way in this moment. Hux retrieved his cigarra tin and lighter from his uniform and then came back, lighting himself one and smoking quietly. The cigarra was acrid, filling the room with its scent. They each watched the rain come down, blurring the light of the signs outside.

“It was an animal,” Kylo said.

“Hm?”

“An animal bit me. Like a nexu but native to here. Crystalline. It was one with the Force. I felt it, and I went after it. I thought it was human at first because its signature was so strong.”

Hux snorted derisively, thinking, _My fault indeed_. “So you got yourself bitten by a mineralistic cat and now you can’t get us out of this mess.”

“Neither can you.”

“Quite right,” Hux admitted, exhaling smoke.

“You think you’d be better off without me here,” Kylo accused.

“No,” Hux said lightly, “I know I would.”

“They would have killed you.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“You would have gone for your blaster. Wouldn’t you? Without me here.”

Hux hummed. “No. I know when I’m outgunned.”

“You would be dead without me.”

“We aren’t free yet. You don’t even have that disaster of a lightsaber anymore. But by all means, congratulate yourself.”

 _We won’t get free_. Kylo tried to banish the thought. There had to be a way. His thigh twinged. On a whim, he tried to pull Hux’s chair closer with the Force, an action that would have barely taxed him before. Sweat beaded up on his brow, but the chair only shuddered and stayed put. Hux gave him a sharp warning look.

“You don’t always struggle like this,” Hux said pointedly, “when you’re hurt.”

“No,” Kylo growled, ceasing his attempts to move Hux’s chair. “Pain strengthens my connection with the Dark. This is something else. That thing did it to me.”

“So this has never happened before?”

“No.”

“And you don’t know how long it will last.” This one wasn’t a question either. Hux sounded resigned. Kylo’s face twitched. He knew exactly how long it would last, and the end wasn’t in sight. “Well,” said Hux. “Our best chance of getting out of here is whenever they decide to open that door.”

Kylo thought it seemed hopeless. He didn’t want to talk any more about it. “When I was young, my Master had me train sometimes without using the Force. Trying not to, at least. It’s hard to stop, usually. Those lessons were my least favorite.”

“Why?”

“I wasn’t good at them.”

Hux chuckled, picturing it accurately although he hadn't known Kylo then, when he’d been called Ben Solo. He was imagining Kylo getting frustrated and lashing out, losing his footing in rage. Normally Kylo’s power made up for that. The truth of it prickled at Kylo, especially now.

“Did you dislike anything? At school?” He asked, already searching Hux’s mind for the answer.

“Oh, plenty of things. For much the same reason.”

“Like what?” The answer that came to Hux’s mind immediately wasn’t one he wanted to share, and Kylo voiced it for him. “ _Dancing?_ ”

Hux scowled. “Old Imperial curriculum, that. A waste of time.”

“You were awful,” Kylo grinned.

“Go ahead, have your laugh. You won’t be dancing for a while yet.”

Kylo did, smiling wide and leaning his head back, his chest shaking with it.

“I’m going to bed,” Hux said, standing and flicking the butt of his cigarra into the ashtray on the side table, which automatically shut and put the flame out. “So if you want help getting there, you are too.” Kylo obligingly held his arm up for Hux to put his shoulder under.

Laying together in the quiet of the room, Hux drifted into sleep before Kylo did. Kylo was unused to sleeping so close to someone. The weight and heat of Hux in bed next to him, the sound of his breath so close, was strange. When Kylo was a student on Ach-To, and afterward in the Citadel, he picked the furthest place from the others to sleep because his mind wandered at night. The pattern resumed now. When at last Kylo slept, he tangled himself in Hux’s dreams, melding them together with his. It made for strange pictures.

Kylo found himself seated between Hux and his sullen father -- a frowning older man, alike to Hux only in coloration -- at their dinner table, pushing food around their plates silently while rain beat the windows. It was dismal, but passed quickly, the Huxes estate overcome by vines, Hux’s father sinking into the earth. Finally Hux and Kylo sat on the soil in a dense jungle. They were younger, Hux in his cadet uniform. Facing Ben. It was Ben Solo across from him now. Other children moved in the periphery of the clearing, lifting rocks. Ben tried to do the same. Hux watched Ben raise pebbles into the air. Far more than the other students lifted. One of them said something, something unintelligible in the dream, but Ben knew it was an insult. He sent the pebbles he’d floated in the air scattering in all directions, some of them flying with enough velocity to embed themselves in tree trunks. The other students ran screaming. Hux stayed put. He only fixed Ben with a disdainful look, unafraid.

  
  


The next day passed in the same fashion as the one before. Hux tended to Kylo’s leg, which steadily worsened despite his efforts. They showered. They drank from the tap, and at noon meals were delivered through a locking window in the door by a droid. They ate, famished. Hux smoked. They took digs at each other and that was a comfort. Hux helped Kylo navigate to the refresher. That night Kylo had a nightmare. The same one he always did, having started when he was small.

He was in a void, running across the ground, his nude reflection faintly shimmering up at him from his feet as if from obsidian glass, all else dark. He ran. He called for his parents and got no answer. Soon the void at his feet was splashing as he walked. Dark water. Murky. Cold. He couldn’t see his feet. Then his calves disappeared, then his thighs, and it was up to his waist, covering his navel. It was freezing. He shivered, splashing through it, feet sticking in the silt at the bottom as it tried to suck him down. He called again for help. For anyone.

“ _Ren?_ ” Hux’s voice was panicked. He was there, in the distance, white skin nearly glowing in the void. They made their way to each other, splashing, sinking. They were both up to their chests when they met each other. Hux reached immediately for Kylo’s shoulders, fingers digging in. Their breath fogged between them. “W-where are we--”

“It’s okay,” Kylo said automatically even as dread clenched at his stomach. The water rose, pooling into Hux’s collar bones, lapping at their shoulders. “It’s okay, it’ll be over soon. It will--”

But then the dream changed in another way. Something gripped Kylo’s ankle. He yelped. Hux reacted at the same time, nearly jumping onto Kylo, flinching away from something beneath the water as well. Hands grabbed them beneath the opaque surface of the Dark, gripping tight, clawing where they wrenched themselves free. A hand breached the surface with a splash, clamping down heavily on Hux’s shoulder and listing him to the side.

“ _Ren!_ ”

Kylo grabbed for it, trying to peel it away from Hux even as he felt more hands overtake his own body, digging their fingers in cruelly. The hand on Hux’s shoulder came free and Kylo yanked on it, pulling a matching forearm out of the murk before he lost his grip and it splashed back down again. Hux was shaking, dry sobs wracking his frame. The water rose, licking its icy tongue along their jaws. They each tilted their faces up, fighting to breathe. Kylo had grown practiced over the years in letting himself sink. There was no use in fighting -- he always ended up below the surface anyway. But this time was different. With the hands clawing at him, he fought hard. His heart hammered. He gasped for air, trying to stay above the surface even with unseen people gripping his shoulders and holding him down. A new hand surfaced and clamped itself over Hux’s mouth. A silver Imperial ring glittered on one of its fingers, and Hux screamed through its grasp as he was dragged below.

“Hux! H-” Kylo’s cries were drowned in his throat as the water rose, filling his mouth and then his eyes. And all was Dark.

Kylo woke, the dream banished entirely by the reality of the neon city beyond their window. Even with the window set as dark as it would go, their prison was rendered in teals and fuschias. Kylo put a hand out beside him and found the bed empty. Warm and sweat-soaked, but empty. He sat up. Hux was seated on the floor by Kylo’s side of the bed, watching speeders zoom by outside. His hair was mussed and he hadn’t bothered with a shirt, sitting there in just the gray sleep trousers he’d been wearing.

The sight of Hux’s chest uncovered by black water did more to ease Kylo’s nerves than the sight of his own body did. While he, too, had left the water behind in his head, the wound on his thigh glowed dimly even through the sheet on top of it. And it hurt like a bitch. Kylo peeled down the sheet and rearranged himself on top of it, wincing as he removed it from his thigh. Some of the scab had crusted itself to the sheet, and tearing it free removed the dried layer. Fresh glowing ooze emerged from the bite, lighting the room as much as the signs outside did.

Kylo looked back toward Hux, about to say as much, and noticed Hux’s state. He was lighting a cigarra with hands so shaky he hadn’t succeeded in a full five minutes. “Hux.”

Hux stopped, flicking the lighter closed and throwing it at the window. It struck the transparisteel and clattered to the floor. “Shit,” he hissed. “Shit, shit, _shit_ \--”

“Hux, it’s okay. It was only a dream. I’ve had it before,” Kylo shifted uncomfortably, feeling guilty for pulling Hux in with him. “It was mine.”

“No,” said Hux. “It wasn’t.”

Kylo summoned Hux’s lighter from the floor and activated it, holding it out toward him. He was gratified that he could do that at least, though the lighter had rattled on the floor for a worryingly long time before zipping to his hand. Hux sighed and crawled closer, holding the cigarra to his lips. With only one of the two wobbling, he was able to light it, inhaling deeply as it started to burn. His next mournful sigh was more relaxed. Hux sagged against the bed.

 _If I wasn’t like this_ , thought Kylo, _I could have gotten us out of here ten times over_ . They never would have been taken in the first place. This _was_ the path that he had seen -- this was how Hux would die -- and he’d landed them both in this trap by attempting to avoid it. Hux would have been more alert to their surroundings if Kylo hadn’t been half dead at the time of the attack. He needed his strength back. He needed to heal. It was impossible. He wanted to scream. Kylo clenched his fists, digging little half-moons from his nails into his palms, and felt marginally better. They sat for a while in silence, letting their shared fear dissipate.

Eventually, playing over his encounter with the Force creature again in his head, Kylo asked, “Have you ever been in love?”

“Love? I have no use for it.” Hux said. But there was bitterness in his mind.

“I didn’t ask you if it was useful.”

Hux said coldly, “Love is a wound. A hidden one deep inside the body. Hard to be rid of.”

Laying on the bed with his thigh flared up in agony, Kylo couldn’t disagree. “A wound for two?”

Hux’s mouth quirked up. “When two are involved, it's a garrote. Twisted between them, suffocating the both.”

“Did you have a knack for prose at the Academy?”

“It wasn’t in the curriculum. Oratory was. Did you write verse in school?”

“I wrote. I didn’t care what. We copied old Jedi texts down as part of meditation. I liked the process of it. I had a calligraphy set.”

“Charming,” Hux said, sounded anything but charmed. He blew out a thin line of smoke and leaned his head back against the mattress, closing his eyes.

“Are you rid of your wound?”

“I’m tired of this, Ren.” Hux said without opening his eyes. He added a perfunctory, “Supreme Leader.”

“Hux,” Ren added the low sing-song tone to his voice that he used directly in advance of a bout of destruction. It wasn’t an adequate threat in his weakened state, but it did work. In a way. Hux turned to give him an annoyed look.

“I have fancied myself in love before, Ren,” he said. “I’d imagine most people do at some point before their thirty-fifth birthday.”

Kylo shrank a bit at that, against his will, frowning.

Hux saw it. He was closed off from the Force but his eyes were sharp, as always. Hux always noticed when something was different or wrong about Kylo, and never shied away from exploiting it. “Oh, is that it?” He said with mock sympathy. “Have you never been _in love?_ Are you worried we’ll die here before you get the chance?”

 _We’ll die here precisely because I haven’t got the chance_ , Kylo thought acidly, and then, looking at the particularly arresting way in which the neon lights of the city outside played upon Hux’s hair and face, _Or because I haven’t got a chance of being fallen in love with. That’s the problem_. Kylo tore his gaze away from Hux, looking at the ceiling instead. For a time it seemed Hux would allow them to lapse back into silence.

“I’m running low on these,” Hux murmured.

“Cigarra?”

“Mm-hm.”

“How tragic for you.”

“For you, too. I’ll be irritable.”

“Thought you’d already hit your peak in that department. With me.”

“Are you inviting me to speak plainly, Supreme Leader?”

“What if I was? Would you tell me I’m stupid? That I lack discipline? That I’m savage?” Kylo listed things he’d heard in Hux’s mind often enough, not bothering to reach out to it now.

“Powerful,” said Hux, and Kylo’s thoughts stopped short, blanking out. “Oh, all the rest too. But...you’re powerful, Ren. My greatest irritation with you now is that you went and handicapped yourself chasing a magic beast.”

Kylo sat up straighter, groaning quietly as his leg throbbed, shifting to sit up against the headboard and observe Hux properly. Hux’s face was still drawn, Kylo saw. No doubt he’d spent the time of their capture thus far running through all their means of escape and coming up with few options. And Kylo knew that Hux viewed his inability to curb the infection in Kylo’s leg as his own failing. The cigarra in his hand was burning low, the lit end approaching his fingertips as he took another, rather defeated-looking drag.

“May _I_ speak plainly, General?” Kylo asked.

Hux looked at him, his evident despair transforming slowly into vague amusement. “We’re moving on to my faults then. I’m a kicked dog, aren’t I? A rabid cur, that’s what Snoke used to call me.”

“Not one that cowers,” Kylo said, glancing down at his injury, the infection within it still glowing faint blue in the dark of the room even as it dried and closed up again. “One that bites.” Hux smiled. It was his real smile, sharp and cold, the one that usually only Phasma could inspire, and the sight of which would send his crew running. Kylo’s heart jumped. He continued, searching for the right word and feeling a pit in his stomach, hoping that Hux wouldn’t close himself off again. “You’re rabid, alright. Cunning, though. Determined.”

Kylo felt Hux’s mind warm up after he’d uttered those words. It was like sitting in front of his hut’s fire pit on Ach-To, watching the little blaze crackle in the night. Kylo had to steel himself against raising a hand out to appreciate the heat, settling for shifting forward instead, drawing his uninjured leg in and resting his arm on that knee. Hux’s mind echoed with Kylo’s voice. _Cunning, determined_. “You won’t trick me into paying you more compliments,” Hux said, but the heat coming from his soul didn’t waver.

“Then pay me another insult.”

“No.”

“I’m asking for it.”

“You’re quick-tempered, and I’ll not continue, precisely for that reason.” Hux took a last inhale of his cigarra and then gave up on it, crushing it into the durasteel floor to extinguish it, and breathed out. The smoke caught the cyan lights of the buildings outside and its roiling shadow played across Hux’s face. Kylo didn’t have a response, or another direction to steer the conversation, and while he grasped for one, Hux continued. “I’ve been in love. I was, when I was younger. It was a lesson learned.”

Kylo’s heart lurched, pleasant and unpleasant at once. He wanted to know more. And didn’t. “What happened?”

“My father found out.”

“He disapproved?” Kylo couldn’t imagine what his own parents would have said or done had he brought someone home when he was younger. It would have shocked them, probably. Ben Solo had been an awkward and gangly thing, and spiteful on top of that. He hadn’t even had any friends.

“Father disapproved _completely_ ,” Hux said, staring ahead out the window, raising his eyebrows at the memory. In his mind Kylo could see Brendol Hux, his posture ramrod straight and his hands clasped behind him, staring disapprovingly down. There was something else too, something swimming and hazy. Hux was holding it back. Not from Kylo, though he was prone to trying that. From himself. A form, a face, obscured as if through frosted transparisteel. The memory was painful, Kylo felt. A palm pressed itself against the glass with a thud, and Kylo jumped where he sat. Hux looked up at him sharply. “Looking in, are you?”

“I’m sorry,” Kylo said at once, and the both of them were silent at that. Kylo couldn’t remember the last time he’d apologized to anyone. He never had, to Hux. But this one came naturally. He still felt the dregs of Hux’s sorrow at that particular memory.

“What did you see?”

“Nothing.”

Hux rolled his eyes.

“I mean, I couldn’t see it. It was blurred.”

“Would you like to know about him?” Hux asked. His voice was nonchalant. Kylo didn’t dip below the surface this time.

“Why did your father disapprove? Is there...does the Order…?”

“Mm, no, not because he was...well, a he. The Empire was big on having children, of course. It’s a ready-made populace raised with the right values. Less resources spent on conditioning. But children can be had outside of relationships, if necessary. Outside of marriages. I was.”

Kylo absorbed that. “So...he wasn’t a good match?”

“He was a distraction. That’s as much reason for it as there is. And it’s true. I was distracted.” Hux sighed, and then looked up at Kylo’s face with a wry expression. “We were both cadets in our final year. I was cutting class to go to Scarparus Port with him. We’d day drink and smoke. Get into trouble.”

Kylo gave him an exaggerated look of surprise. “What happened to _that_ Hux? You have the Order handbook memorized. You wear sock garters.”

Hux snorted. “It’s the regulation uniform, Ren. Everyone does.”

“Everyone doesn’t. So your father punished you for that?”

“That was his logic for it, but my marks hadn’t slipped. I was still at the top of my class. Beneath the surface, my father didn’t like to see me happy.”

“He split you up,” Kylo said, confident in it.

“No,” said Hux, and now the heat in him dampened. Guttering out. “I wouldn’t have listened to any rule he set.” Kylo brushed against his mind again and came away sick, nauseated. It must have shown on his face. Hux’s mouth thinned. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry again. I won’t hear it.”

“Okay,” Kylo said, taking a steadying breath. “If you want to--”

Hux did. The words poured out of him, quiet and sure as though he were reading aloud from a book. “I went home for break, and met my father in the drawing room, and it was crowded. That wasn’t unusual, but, this time _he_ was there, too. Looking like trembling prey surrounded by skinwolves. My father got up to his usual tricks. Ordering me around and letting his friends do the same. I’d gotten to the point of bearing it knowing I’d be gone soon but--” Hux took a shaky breath, and then recovered himself. “It was worse in front of him. It had always been separate before, even with Father acting as the Commandant at the Academy. My life at home wasn’t my life there. The others didn’t know.”

Kylo watched the images play in Hux’s mind, torment starting in his formative years and continuing until Hux finally put an end to it all himself. He saw Hux used as a scullery maid, as a bartender, as a target for stun-weapons. As entertainment for Brendol Hux’s band of Empire friends. A plaything. He smelt liquored breath wafting over his face in the rain-damp room as these former officers made crude remarks about Hux and his late mother alike and then laughed uproariously at their own jokes. He felt his body being groped at, whispers of those touches following him up to his room at night. On this particular day, the assembled crowd was ruthless, enfolding Hux’s unfortunate paramour into their game, asking him questions.

In Hux’s mind still, this other cadet was a blur. He sat in the drawing room amidst perfectly visible elders, the chair he sat in clear even to the point of the threadwork on the cushion, but the boy was obscured. As if his skin were topped with a layer of frosted transparisteel. The Imperials’ voices clashed, talking over each other, each of them more eager than the last to bring Hux low as Hux did their bidding without a word. They indulged themselves in this cruelty both for the love of it and because doing so would raise their favor with Brendol.

_I’ve always thought he had a pretty mouth, does he put it to use for you, young man?_

_Cigarra, here. That’s a good boy._

_He’s not much when you get him out of uniform, is he though? We’ve done that before. Do you remember that, Enric? Skinny little thing, he is._

_Brooks needs another drink, don’t keep him waiting._

_You know, I don’t think we’ve seen him on his knees. That would be a sight, I’m sure._

Kylo felt hands like searching spiders catching hold of his wrist, his jaw, his _hip, his thigh_ , tugging at him, pushing him. He went to his knees roughly. They would bruise. The clouded form of the boy in the chair seemed to shudder in horror, gripping the armrests tight. A hand on the back of Kylo’s neck, pushing him down, pressing his face into the cadet’s boots even as the boy struggled to pull them back out of the way, trapped in his chair.

 _Does he lick your boots too? Just like this_ \-- Kylo hissed, shaking his head, returning to himself.

He and Hux had both gone rigid in the grip of Hux’s memories, the set of their spines and shoulders nearly identical, both of their faces burning with rage. And humiliation. It was there still, the shame. Kylo could have mistaken it for his own.

“He was too scared to protest on my behalf,” Hux said woodenly. “I don’t blame him for that. We graduated and parted ways. He died that year. Planetary skirmish. We’d planned to apply for the same sniper detail, but I changed my application. I couldn’t face him after.”

Kylo could see the thought Hux didn’t voice, and responded to it. “You aren’t weak.” Heat bloomed again in Hux’s mind at that. Small, like the flame of his lighter -- the lighter Kylo still held in his palm. Small, but there.

Hux shifted, turning fully to rest an arm on the bed, facing Kylo. His eyes were bright, alert. “Do you know how often I wished for power like yours? To send them all flying away from me against the walls with a thought?”

“You dealt with them in your own way,” Kylo said, seeing the truth of it. Admiring it. He himself would not have been able to wait like Hux had, suffering in silence behind a carefully crafted veneer. He’d have shattered first. And without the Force….

“It was a longer game, my way,” Hux said wistfully as if he were the mind-reader.

“But satisfying.”

“ _Very_. The look on Brooks’s face, on Father’s...I haven’t told you before.”

“No,” said Kylo, peering intently at Hux.

“I could have shot Father like the others. It was easy enough to craft betrayals for them that justified their executions, but the idea didn’t appeal. I had Phasma get me a Parnassos beetle’s toxin. The med droids aboard his ship didn’t know how to treat his illness. They didn’t suspect the cause. When his agony became too great to remain conscious they transferred him to a bacta tank. I, of course, insisted he be returned to a waking state. So that he could fight it. He finished dissolving there. I was very busy, taking on his workload, but I visited when my schedule allowed.”

Kylo contrasted that picture with his own father’s death. The look on Han’s face, the red glow of the saber reflected in his eyes. How quickly they had dimmed, gone in a second. How deep his own despair had been, settling into the centers of his bones where triumph should have bloomed. Another test failed even as he’d completed it. “It was over after that, for you?” Kylo asked, voice low. Hushed.

“Not in the slightest,” said Hux. It rang true. Kylo remembered Hux’s addition to their nightmare. The hands.

“Come here,” Kylo said.

Hux shifted, moving closer to the headboard where Kylo sat and resting an arm on the bed beside him. Kylo took that hand in his and motioned for Hux to give him the other one. When he had them both, he held them up gently before Hux’s face, showing Hux’s own hands to him.

“Picture these,” said Kylo. “Know them, and picture them instead.”

Hux gave him a brief, annoyed look, but considered that. And then he turned Kylo’s grip, studying Kylo’s hands instead. Kylo’s heart beat heavy and he fought to keep his hands from trembling under Hux’s scrutiny. Hux eventually released him and stood, walking around to his own side of the bed and crawling back in to return to sleep.

  
  


Morning came, signaled only by the time on the clock. Hux got up and went about trying to use the room’s small caf maker for the first time, cursing quietly at it. Kylo groaned, stretching his body out, and then froze. He pawed at the sheet, pulling it away from his body.

His thigh didn’t hurt. Not like it should, at least. It was sore, still, but no worse than it might be after working himself too hard in training. His eyes confirmed what he felt. The wound’s swelling had gone down, and the puncture marks were shrinking, their unnatural glow diminished.

Hux took note of Kylo’s awakening finally, turning back to look at him and seeing the shock on his face. “What is it?” Hux asked, voice urgent. “Do you need—”

“It’s healing.”

They both sat silent, looking at each other. Hux’s face went soft, and then he grinned. Escape seemed possible again. “It’s about time.” Hux said. “Do you think you can walk on it?”

Kylo bent his knee and prodded at his thigh with his fingers. “I think so.”

“You’ll need to pretend to be sicker than you are when they show up. No reason for them to know you’re recovering.”

Kylo’s mind roiled. The only way this was possible was if someone fell in love with him. If someone loved him as he was. And the only person here was, impossibly, Hux. He stared at Hux even as the other man turned back to the caf maker, getting it whirring finally. Hux was falling in love with him.

Hux set two mugs of caf on the table in front of the chairs and returned to Kylo’s side, helping him up, supporting less of his weight than before. Kylo tested his leg and found that it held. He limped a bit on his way to the chair, but that was all. They drank silently. The caf was cheap and rather awful, but still better than what they could get on a Star Destroyer. That was a bit funny to both of them.

“Out of cigarra?” Kylo asked.

Hux nodded. “Smoked one before you woke up. Fresh out.” And then, more quietly, though he hadn’t found any audio devices when he searched the room, “Have you sensed anything?”

Kylo closed his eyes, concentrating. “More movement than usual outside.”

“I think today’s the day,” Hux said. “I’ve got a feeling. Your timing is impeccable.” Kylo wondered silently if that was why Hux had donned his uniform again. “Do I need to worry about getting your lightsaber back for you?”

“I can make another one,” Kylo mused, thinking that orange would be a nice color.

Before noon, Hux was proven right. The same group of Oradians opened the door and cuffed them with magbinders again. Hux submitted to his cuffs after telling them that Kylo Ren would need assistance to stand and walk. The biggest of the group hauled Kylo roughly to his feet and cuffed his arms behind his back, pushing him forward with a curt, “He will manage.” Kylo limped more than he needed to down the hall and into the lift. The leader of the group, the woman, dragged Hux along by his arm, and threw him into the lift hard enough to send him face-first into the wall with a hollow clang.

“Get up,” she said coldly, watching him crumple to the floor and then fight to right himself with his arms pinned to his back.

“You’ll live to regret this,” Hux said, licking his lips. The bottom one had split and blood trickled down his chin.

“We do not accept the terms of the First Order,” the woman told him. “You will not live at all.”

The lift opened to reveal the building’s lobby, and one of the group dragged Hux out, dropping him on the black durasteel floor and barking at him again to get up. The Oradian next to Kylo pushed him again, and Kylo limped out into the room. In front of him, Hux rolled slowly from his side to his front, baring the magbinders. The Oradian with him continued to yell, leaning over him to finally pull him up bodily.

Kylo closed his eyes, and reached out to the Force. The magbinders holding them both tight flew apart. Hux’s pair hit the Oradian leaning over him as the locking mechanism shot toward the ceiling, cracking their skull and putting them flat on their back. Kylo’s arms were free. He shook them out and clenched his fists, and put his weight on the leg he’d been making a show of favoring. It didn’t hurt at all. _I’m back._ He opened his eyes.

Hux was already up and aiming the downed Oradian’s blaster at the rest of the group behind Kylo. He fired three bolts and Kylo heard bodies hit the durasteel floor. The woman yelled and dashed for cover. Hux swiveled, the barrel of the blaster following her, but Kylo ran forward and pulled him away toward the doors. Security personnel were already swarming from the hallways. They sprinted through the transparisteel front doors and out into the rainy darkness beyond.

“Left,” Hux called, turning on a dime and running that way. Kylo tailed him, already seeing why Hux had chosen this direction -- there was a speeder dock ahead. Kylo went straight for one of the speeder bikes parked out front of it. They’d be faster than a traditional speeder. He held his hand over the ignition and turned the mechanism within, and the bike purred to life. Kylo mounted it. Hux stood by, firing at the security personnel leaving the justice center. Once the bike was running, he hopped on behind Kylo. They shot off into the labyrinth of city streets.

Kylo made turns at random at first, just dodging the wailing police speeders that whirred into action as their escape was reported. Then Hux, who had been holding onto his shoulders, squeezed one twice to be sure he had Kylo’s attention. “Get us out of the city. I have my datapad, I can radio the ship once we’re somewhere safe enough to wait.” Kylo nodded, and took the next on-ramp to a higher altitude. Once they were speeding by in high-altitude traffic, Kylo could see the edge of the forest where city lights dimmed into the muted pinks of the bioluminescent trees. He headed there, dipping below the foliage. It was slower going, but they’d also be harder to track.

They rode for hours, the sirens and lights of police cruisers eventually fading behind them. Giving up the chase, at least for now. The forest, as they left the city behind, became more tangled with glowing plants of all hues. Occasionally, kyber formations jutted from the black earth. Silken green threads of shining moss caught on them as they raced by. Under the roof of foliage, the rain did not beat them, but by the time they stopped they were still soaked through.

Within a clearing they came upon an intergalactic shipping motel — lines of rooms for the night and a docking bay with a fueling station. Exactly the sort of venue it would be easy to disappear in. And Kylo had an additional trick up his sleeve once he realized the proprietor was not Oradian. He left Hux to deal with the speeder bike and entered the glass-front convenience station in front of the long, squat structure.

Kylo waved a hand in front of the blue xeno behind the counter. “You will rent us the room at the end by the docks.”

The owner repeated Kylo’s phrase in his burbling language.

“You will forget you saw me.”

This, too, was repeated.

Kylo shrugged his shoulders, stretching them after hours of steering that damned bike, and sighted the row of cigarra boxes behind the counter. He asked for the priciest box and picked up one of the lighters from the display. Then, a bottle of lube and a box of condoms from the next display over.

The owner rang it up and told him the total, and Kylo informed him that he had already paid. The owner repeated it. Kylo told him again that he would forget he’d seen anything, just for good measure, as he exited with his items. His own words echoed back to him in an alien tongue. And hells, that felt good.

He nearly jogged to the room, keying it open and ordering the windows opaque. Kylo dumped his stolen loot on the side table next to the bed, and then moved the lube and condoms to the lower shelf. He undressed, hanging his clothes up to dry in the open closet.

The room was threadbare and old, but clean enough. Hux came in shortly after Kylo settled himself on the bed, and joined him after shucking his own wet clothes and washing the dried blood from his face in the refresher.

“Did you--”

“Bike’s in the manager’s shed. I put a tarp over it, and the signal was good so I radioed from there. The ship was attacked at the same time we were, but they managed to lift off and return to space. We’ll be picked up here in four hours.”

“Stole you a cigarra pack.”

Hux looked past Kylo to the side table and then leaned over him, fumbling with the pack and the lighter before settling back beside him, inhaling from the cigarra he held deeply. Hux looked at Kylo at last and paused, scrutinizing his face. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Stop that.”

“I’m not doing--”

“You’re looking at me strangely.”

“It was kind of hot, seeing you shoot.”

Hux sat up straighter and cursed. “You want to flirt with me now? When we were destined for the gallows and you were hard as a fucking durasteel beam you turned me down, but now—” Hux cut himself off with an angry cough. “Ren, you are going to be the death of me.”

“Am not. You’re alive because I came with you--”

“Shut up. Shut up right now,” Hux snapped, and then as if to ensure it, he leaned in and kissed Kylo hard on the mouth. It was strange and disjointed for a moment as they adjusted to each other. Kylo responded with the same fervor and accidentally bumped his own considerable nose into Hux’s as he twisted for a different angle. The place where Hux’s lip had split and scabbed over was scratchy, and he tasted of iron and tabac. Kylo’s hands found Hux’s arms, squeezing once and then roaming up to his shoulders.

He ghosted them over Hux’s throat and something dark and sickly-sweet flashed by in Hux’s mind. Kylo chased it down, taking it like a shot. The burning throne room of the Supremacy seen through Hux’s eyes, his hand on his blaster, taking aim at Kylo’s prone body, hesitating, and then the world upended. He couldn’t breathe, clutching at the invisible hands on his throat, seeing Kylo’s eyes burning black up at him as his vision went dark at the edges. Capillaries burst in his eyes. His pulse hammered, blood directed steadily somewhere it was less than helpful. He felt terror. Lust, also, for Kylo’s power as much as Kylo himself. And somehow when he pictured his own demise it was always this. Something else, at this rate, would come as a disappointment. Kylo jerked back, out of Hux’s head and away from their kiss, breathing hard.

“Have I frightened you?” Hux murmured, and of course he knew exactly what Kylo had seen. Kylo’s forays into Hux’s mind were one side of the coin — as Kylo learned how to pick him apart, Hux learned the feel of it.

“No,” Kylo said, gathering himself. “No. Tell me if it goes too far. That’s an order.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader.” Hux made the title sound like an insult.

Kylo lunged, pinning Hux beneath him with his hands clasped around his neck and kissing him deeply again, plunging his tongue into Hux’s mouth, licking into him. Kylo tightened his grip, and Hux moaned. His cock stiffened, pressing into Kylo’s thigh, getting harder as Kylo increased the pressure on his windpipe. Kylo felt his own body respond to Hux’s and shifted to grind against him, gasping at the friction.

_Okay?_

_Harder._

_Your eyes are watering._

_Harder._

Kylo pulled back to look at Hux’s face, gone red as he struggled to breathe, tears rolling back into his hair. His eyes seemed brightened by it instead of dulled, the green jarring against the whites of his eyes as they turned pink, bloodshot.

Something burned suddenly, on Kylo’s left bicep, and he flinched, his grip loosening. Hux was holding the lit end of his cigarra against Kylo’s skin. Kylo had forgotten he had it clasped between his fingers still. He held Hux down by his neck with one hand and grabbed the cigarra from him with the other, the arm that now sported an angry circular burn. Kylo held the cigarra gently to Hux’s lips for him to inhale, replacing what little oxygen Hux was capable of getting with smoke. Kylo waited until Hux’s brain went fuzzy and docile from his lack of air, and then stubbed the cigarra out on the headboard, leaving an angry black mark there, and tossed it aside.

“Open your mouth,” Kylo said. Hux’s mouth hadn’t been fully closed, having gone soft as his consciousness dimmed, but he obeyed the command now, opening it wider. Kylo spat and then let himself drool over Hux’s face, his saliva landing in Hux’s mouth and on his lips. Hux’s mind lit up, an ember that Kylo had gently blown on, flaring bright now. Kylo released him.

Hux gasped in a full breath and coughed, his chest heaving. Kylo sat up, backing away to give him air. “You liked that?” Kylo asked, though the evidence was right in front of him. And beneath him.

“Perfect,” Hux said, his voice ragged.

“Even the spit?”

Hux looked up at him, his face finally returning to its natural shade. “Fuck me as well as you choke me and I may have to keep you.”

Kylo bit his lip and scrambled back over to his side of the bed to retrieve his supplies from the side table, bringing the bottle of lube and box of condoms up to the surface. “Should I, er—”

“Oil,” Hux said. “I’m clean. If you are, leave the barrier.”

“I thought...it’s less mess.”

“This is the only area of my life in which I like a bit of cleanup.” Hux purred.

Kylo grabbed the bottle and returned to Hux’s side. “Top or bottom?”

Hux grabbed hold of Kylo’s cock, his grip deliciously firm. Kylo’s stomach jumped at the feeling, at the knowledge this was actually happening. Hux squeezed him from root to tip, twisting as he reached the head. “You’re absurd, you know. This is as thick as your wrist. Not my wrist, _yours_.”

“Does that mean top?”

“No,” Hux grinned. “But you’ll need to help with the prep. Your fingers are bigger.” And then Hux pushed Kylo down and straddled his chest facing away from him, effectively putting his ass on display. Especially when he leaned down. Kylo squirted lube onto his fingers and then spread Hux to look at him, circling his fingertips around the rim of muscle, slicking it. His attention was obliterated when he felt wet heat envelope the head of his cock.

“ _Oh_ ,” Kylo canted his hips up, seeking more of that. Hux laughed, humming deep in his throat as he bobbed down, working Kylo’s shaft with his hands, and sucked. “Let me see,” Kylo started to sit up with nowhere to go since Hux was on top of him.

Hux pulled off with a wet pop. “Greedy, Ren. Get to work or I’ll stop.”

Kylo pushed a finger in more quickly than was strictly necessary, gratified by the jolt of pleasure-pain he felt in Hux’s mind and by the feel of Hux’s mouth on him as Hux picked back up where he’d left off. Kylo moved this first finger in and out until it was easy and then added a second, driving them in to the last knuckle and crooking them down against Hux’s front wall. The low groan the motion drew out of Hux made Kylo’s breath hitch. He scissored his fingers, hearing Hux whine around his cock, the vibrations making him moan himself, and Hux scraped his teeth gently up Kylo’s shaft on his next pass.

Kylo tapped at the edge of Hux’s mind and heard him thinking about his hands, how it felt to be skewered on the same hands that he’d seen and felt so often used to destroy, to choke and bruise and beat and break. Kylo withdrew his fingers and pushed a third in, fucking them in and out and attempting to scissor the outside two again, stretching Hux open. Hux pulled off of Kylo again to cry out, and Kylo considered attempting his fourth finger when Hux panted, “That’s enough. I’m ready.”

“Are you sure?” Kylo asked, pulling his fingers out. He picked up the bottle of lube from where it lay and squirted some directly onto Hux, just to be safe, watching it drip down. Hux held one of his hands back, reaching for the bottle, and slicked Kylo’s cock generously for him before moving to the side. Kylo bit back a moan at the feeling of Hux’s grip on him. His ass would be better; Kylo was willing to bet credits on that.

He sat up and swung his legs around to sit on his knees. Hux was already positioning himself on all fours in front of him, knees spread. Ready for the taking. Kylo lined his cock up and held Hux steady with a hand on one hip, and then pushed in.

“Tight,” Kylo grunted, his hips stuttering once before he pushed in all the way. He rested there, letting Hux adjust. The stretch had drawn a wanton sound from Hux that Kylo knew was involuntary. Whorish, Hux thought. “You’d make a good whore.” Kylo said, plucking the thought from his mind. “You’ll let me do anything I want to you, won’t you?” Kylo ran a hand along Hux’s spine as he spoke, checking his body for tension as he used the Force to check his mind.

“Yes,” Hux groaned.

“Are you my whore?”

“Yours,” said Hux, thinking, _For you, right now_.

“No one else sees this,” Kylo said, rubbing a circle on Hux’s back, speaking from their shared stream of consciousness in this moment. “No one else gets to. You’re showing me,” He came back to himself. “You’ll let me do anything I want. But I know what _you_ want.”

Kylo withdrew slowly, both of them breathing hard at the feel of it, and watched Hux’s thoughts as he pushed back in.

 _He’s so big, too big, I can’t clench down I can’t kriff how much of him is there? By the tides—_ everything went white and Hux arched his back when Kylo hit his prostate. His anxiety disappeared, replaced by _More_.

“Moan for me,” Kylo said, moving faster, snapping his hips forward roughly now that he’d found the right spot, keeping his mental fingertips in Hux’s brain as if checking the temperature of a bath. Hux complied, moaning louder than Kylo had thought he would. “Gonna make you scream,” Kylo grunted.

Kylo leaned down over Hux and wrapped an arm around his throat, pulling him up against his chest in a headlock as he drove his cock into him. Unable to support himself on the bed, Hux’s hands clawed at Kylo’s arm on instinct, his eyes wide as his breathing was restricted again, his breaths thin and whistling. His nails dug in, leaving bloody scratches on Kylo’s skin. An image appeared in Hux’s mind, a request. _Hit me_.

Kylo shook his head once and decided on an alternative. He bit down on the muscle between Hux’s neck and shoulder hard enough to break the skin. Hux did scream then, the sound choked off by the crook of Kylo’s elbow constricting his windpipe. Blood dripped down Hux’s chest and stomach. The remains of the healing bite on Kylo’s thigh, no longer glowing, prickled as his muscles tightened. A wound for two. Hux’s scream tapered off into muffled moans, and he pushed his body back against Kylo, fucking him back, fucking himself harder on Kylo’s cock, pushing his throat more tightly against Kylo’s forearm in his effort to get leverage.

The pressure of his building orgasm filled Kylo’s groin. One of his legs shook. Hux wasn’t there yet, and Kylo moved the hand on his hip to Hux’s flushed and leaking cock, pumping it in time with his thrusts against his prostate, feeling the sparks in Hux’s body and mind as if they were his own. They were close, they were close...Kylo tightened the arm around Hux’s neck, cutting off his air completely. The edges of the world blurred and went black. Hux’s body constricted around Kylo though the man had thought he couldn’t do it, his muscles clenching in fear as darkness threatened to consume him. Kylo cried out, coming hard. His muscles flexed and then loosened, and Hux sucked in a weeping breath. Hux’s grip on Kylo’s arm had begun to go slack as his mind was choked out of consciousness, but it tightened now on this last upstroke of Kylo’s fist. Hux finished, Kylo wringing it out of him, and spilled ropes of white over the drab hotel sheets. He collapsed forward into the sticky mess he’d made, and Kylo onto him.

They lay like that until they caught their breath, Kylo much faster than Hux. He shakily moved aside when he was able so that Hux could breathe without his weight on top of him, slipping out of Hux’s body and seeing that he’d come so much it was dripping down Hux’s thighs. Down both their thighs. Kylo tried to think of a curse that would be adequate, was at a loss even when he considered some choice Shyriiwook ones, and just groaned instead.

“Hux,” Kylo said, sitting up and positioning himself so that he was laying the right way in bed. Hux hadn’t yet moved, though he was breathing visibly. “Hux. You okay?”

Hux pushed himself up on shaking arms, and turned around, laying on his back. He ran his fingers across his stomach, grimacing at the mixture of tacky blood and semen there. He wiped his hand on the sheets next to him and then looked up at Kylo. “I’m keeping you.”

Kylo laughed, hoping his face didn’t look as lovestruck as he felt. He almost said it aloud— _I love you_. Instead he said, “Need another smoke?”

“After that? Yes.”

Kylo lit him one and handed it over, caressing Hux’s hand before he pulled away. Hux inhaled, closing his eyes in bliss, and then blew the smoke at Kylo’s face. It stung his eyes and nose.

“Does this mean I get a promotion?” Hux asked around the burning cigarra, looking at Kylo with glittering eyes. His mind was warm. He was sated, and immensely pleased with the pilfered tabac as an offering.

“Royal Consort,” Kylo teased.

“I didn’t exactly have your bed in mind.”

“Grand Marshall.”

Hux snorted at the thought.

“The Order doesn’t have those?”

“No.”

“Guess you’re still just General Hux. But not to me.”

“Not to you,” Hux echoed, and his voice had an edge to it. He was thinking of all the times Kylo had disrespected him, throwing him aside with the Force just as Snoke did even though they were supposed to be co-commanders. It had worsened after Snoke was gone, as though Kylo were making up for the years where he had deigned to let Hux talk back to him. Hux’s memories of their fights weren’t as bitter as Kylo expected. They were broken in and no longer chafed, and that was reassuring. Kylo couldn’t take any of it back if he tried. If he wanted to. Now that they were here, Kylo wouldn’t alter a moment of it for fear of changing this.

“Hux,” Kylo said, his voice low but firm. Hux glanced his way, blowing his next line of smoke graciously aside. “I know before, on the Supremacy after Snoke, I… You have the First Order. I’m asking you to choose this time.”

“To choose,” Hux repeated, turning now to look at Kylo fully.

Kylo held out his hand.

Hux looked at him incredulously, eyes flicking from Kylo’s hand to his face. “Is this your idea of an apology?”

“I’m not apologizing. You were going to shoot me,” Kylo said, and even to his own ears it sounded almost fond. He tried to keep the tremor out of his expression as he said his next words. “Join me.”

Hux hesitated, his face unreadable. Kylo couldn’t bring himself to look into his mind, fear settling in the pit of his stomach. Hux slowly reached over and entwined his fingers with Kylo’s, pressing their palms together.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by Marie de France's lai of the same title, in which Guigemar gets cursed by a magic deer to not heal until he falls in love and that person loves him back. Hux and Kylo's formal wear is based off Yennefer's orgy dress in The Witcher because reasons (all of the reasons are that I think its hot).
> 
> TW:  
> * Hux vaguely mentions and Kylo re-lives trauma from Hux's past that is implied to be sexual in nature, though was not outright sex acts.  
> * When Kylo and Hux get down to it, Hux reacts well to being handled roughly but there is no beforehand negotiation of what occurs -- includes choking to the point of almost passing out, being burnt with the end of a cigarette, being spat on, and being bitten hard enough to draw blood. Hux asks Kylo to hit him and Kylo does not.


End file.
